Cogito Ergo Summary: Your Weekly Science Listings

These listings appear every Wednesday. If you want to let us know about any upcoming science or technology events, you can contact us on LondonistSciTech@Gmail.com

Event of the Week

Dino Jaws at the Natural History Museum

Nothing packs in the punters like a few animatronic dinosaurs. Well, nothing except animatronic elephants. So the NHM should see its attendances soar like a pterodactyl with the opening of its new Dino Jaws exhibition. It’s Natural History Museum: The Director’s Cut…with extra dinosaurs.

As the Dino Jaws name implies, the emphasis here is on how and what the terrible lizards ate. (Hint: not Doug McClure and Jeff Goldblum.) Life-sized animated brutes and interactive displays provide a lessen or two on the dining habits of our Cretaceous friends. The website also holds many reptilian treats, including a traumatic game where you help an embattled Euplocephalus mother defend her babies from raptors.

Even if you grew out of dinosaurs several decades ago, the exhibition still has its uses. The museum is likely to become even more polarised, leaving all the non-dino galleries crowd-free.

Elsewhere

The Friends Meeting House on Euston Road provides an elegant setting for the itinerant Royal Institution’s lecture tonight. Given the topic – the individual’s role in coping with climate change – it’s also an appropriate spot; Euston Road is the undisputed king of vehicle emissions. Dave Reay of Edinburgh University coughs and splutters his way through the politics and science of climate change.

The Dana Centre presents two of its regular slots this week. On Thursday, there’s a 'Pub guide’ to genetics. This being the Dana Centre, fun is high on the agenda.

Find out why DNA can be delightful with genetic blonde Portia Smith, who will be introducing genetics with chromosome cakes and some proteinaceous gene recipes. You'll then be able to try your own hand at DNA cloning techniques in our innovative jelly-based lab.

Finally, on Tuesday, the all-singing, all-dancing Punk Science troupe are back with science ‘made so easy that even people from reality TV will understand it’.